FINCHforum

Hi, I have two zebra finches of unknown age because someone gave them up some time ago and I got them through a bird rescue. They are in a decent sized cage of 30 by 36 inches by themselves.

The male is displaying dominant behavior and chases and plucks the female. She looks pretty ragged sometimes. I've separated them for a time but they always seem to be crying for each other so I've put them back, also because they seem to be good companions in everything but the dominant behavior. They lay eggs which I remove because I don't want any more unwanted birds in this area, where there are many.

A vet said to add in more females to dissipate the dominant behavior but I can't find any and won't buy any. I have also tried to find them an aviary situation but haven't found.

Any suggestions for this would be appreciated as I don't know that much about finches!

Welcome to the forum!

If you can, get a 2nd cage (unless it's possible to put a divider in your current cage) so you can split them up, but keep the cages side by side so they can see/hear each other. Remove any nests/nesting material.

They may have to be housed permanently this way; but at least the female won't get plucked anymore.

Juliet

Hi Juliet, and welcome to the Forum.

Zebras will be Zebras, lol.

You can't begin to imagine how many people have issues with aggressive Zebras, so you are definitely not alone.

As Nerine already mentioned, first thing to do, is to remove any nests or nesting materials from the flight. Nests, are for nesting, and tend to get all birds into breeding mode. Birds don't need them to sleep in.

Second thing, is to add all sorts of fake greenery into your flight. You can pick up cheap vines, flowers, and what not at most dollar stores for next to nothing. Hang them up around the flight, (use your imagination and decorate, decorate to your heart's content) create little hiding corners here and there, where your girl can go to to get away from your overly amorous Romeo.

Offer a couple of swings, and I would put up a couple of mirrors, to give him something else to concentrate on.

A foraging box, is also a great thing to offer your birds.
All you need, is a tupperware container (around a 8 to 12 inches long, and 4 or 5 inches wide).
Into this box, you can put bits of timothy hay, bits of crinkle paper, sticks, stones, wild grass, bits of spray millet, some bird grit, some bits of cooked egg shell, some little treats, etc. This can keep your birds busy for hours, as they love to poke around in there and discover goodies.

Regarding your girl and all the eggs she's been laying:
Because she has been laying many eggs, she has probably used up all of her calcium reserves (which can lead to all sorts of problems). Offering cuttle bone, oyster shell grit, and the afore mentioned cooked egg shells, is very important, and are excellent sources of Calcium for birds.

Please feel free to ask any other questions when they come up.

Thank you so much for all the great info! I am definitely removing the nests and collecting some distracting materials. Getting advice was infinitely helpful so thanks again : )))

Juliet

You're most welcome
Glad to be of help.

They will need a vitamin supplement to add D3 to their diet. I use Oasis Vita-Drops. I also use a water silo to keep the water cleaner. You don't HAVE to offer it every day but I generally do, with 2 or 3 "vitamin vacations" per month.

I have a cuttlebone, a mineral block, crushed egg shell, and Abba Mineral Mix (its blue and you can get it from GlamGouldians) in the cage at all times. You can take the shells from eggs you've used for baking or breakfast, rinse them (they're extraordinarily nasty looking if you don't rinse them first), and microwave for a couple of minutes. Then crush - I use the back of a spoon as if crushing a pill for a child.

Put the mineral mix and crushed egg shell in small treat cups. You will need to knock the edges off the mineral block and score it a bit, otherwise its too hard for finchly beaks. Mine use their mineral block regularly, but it shrinks much more slowly than the one my 'keets use, LOL!

Mostly my guys rely on the ABBA mineral mix these days, but I leave multiple sources in the cage at all times because if they need extra calcium, they need it right then. Sure Abba Mineral Mix is mostly crushed oyster shell, but there's a ton of other stuff in there as well - so if they need extra calcium there are sources of it in the cage without all the extra stuff that is in the mineral mix.